i don't get it... should this be some kind of seal??

My only guess is that it's going off of cats hating water.

I'm positive I posted a response to this before. Did someone delete it?

Oh come on, that's ridiculous.

It's an old wives' tale in Japan that arranging PET bottles filled with water will scare away alley cats.

PET bottles?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate
Better known as polyester when used as a textile and PET when used for packaging material.

From what I've heard, cats are deadly scared of transparent plastic bottles containing water.
Never tried it though.

Someone should draw this happening to Rin as well.

Louchan said:
From what I've heard, cats are deadly scared of transparent plastic bottles containing water.
Never tried it though.

Just tried, my cat was actually playing with the light reflections it made, not scared at all...

Isn't it that the girl is a demon and that the bottles are holding holy water or something? (so that she is afraid from even moving or some crap like that)

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ek20050519wh.html

To be more specific...it's not only that Chen is a cat, but also a shikigami. Coming into contact with water not only forces her into to revert back into her nekomata form, but also deprives her of her powers as a shikigami. Rin isn't a shikigami, so she wouldn't have it as bad.

Chen is a Shikigami. Whatever she might look like now, she is still originally made of paper. And she is a cat. If this was a Pokemon game, she's ging to be like a fire and rock type with a x4 damage multiplier towards water. Of course she'd be scared.

Megamet said:
Chen is a Shikigami. Whatever she might look like now, she is still originally made of paper. And she is a cat. If this was a Pokemon game, she's ging to be like a fire and rock type with a x4 damage multiplier towards water. Of course she'd be scared.

she's not a paper shikigami, she's a contract shikigami, as Ran is as well. they are both separate individuals of their own, the contract gives them some of the owner's power, and in Chen's case, allows her to transform into a humanoid as well

For people who knows a bit about fantasy, you could compare Contract Shikigami with familiars, and Paper Shikigami with homunculi.

garyseven said:
she's not a paper shikigami, she's a contract shikigami, as Ran is as well. they are both separate individuals of their own, the contract gives them some of the owner's power, and in Chen's case, allows her to transform into a humanoid as well

From what I understand on Touhou's wiki, Chen doesn't have a 'cat form' like Rin, so her humanoid form is her 'real' form. Water just makes her (temporarily) lose some of her abilities and a lot of power, along with her connection to Ran.

andaltmorf said:
From what I understand on Touhou's wiki, Chen doesn't have a 'cat form' like Rin, so her humanoid form is her 'real' form. Water just makes her (temporarily) lose some of her abilities and a lot of power, along with her connection to Ran.

Nekomata start out as normal youkai cats and then gain the power to become humanoids when their tail splits. Chen loses so much power when wet that she reverts to her base form - a little black youkai kitten - unless Ran is close by.